corrente

I have got to stop hitting NYT and WaPo "just one last time before bed" or I'm going to be in a coma before election day.

The scandals, and I mean big ones, of the kind that special prosecutors' careers are made of, are hitting so fast I can hardly keep up. This one has my favorite word in it, "contractors", and the ones in question have some Friends in High Places...

(via NYT)

The top civilian contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers, charging that the Army granted the Halliburton Company large contracts for work in Iraq and the Balkans without following rules designed to ensure competition and fair prices to the government, has called for a high-level investigation of what she described as threats to the "integrity of the federal contracting program."

The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, said that in at least one case she witnessed, Army officials inappropriately allowed representatives of Halliburton to sit in as they discussed the terms of a contract the company was set to receive.

Her accusations offer the first extended account of arguments that roiled inside the military bureaucracy over contracts with the company.

Ms. Greenhouse said she would not grant interviews without permission from her employer, fearing possible retribution, Mr. Kohn said.

"Employees of the U.S. government have taken improper action that favored K.B.R.'s interests," the letter said, and Ms. Greenhouse "experienced repeated interference with her role" as chief monitor.

In the case of the 2003 Iraq oil award, Kellogg Brown & Root was given a secret contract months before to draw up plans for fixing oil facilities. Once the invasion began, as the letter relates, it was then deemed the only company in a position to carry out the plan.

There's more. Go read.